Welsh poet Stan Morton has chosen this selection of poems mainly from those written in the last decade of the 20th century and second millennium but waited until 2015 before publication. A miner's son with a first degree in Modern Foreign Languages and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics his work shows both the distinct influences of the poetry he has studied in English, Welsh, French and Spanish and an acute awareness of the structure of language. Having moved from the industrial heartlands of...

All families have secrets.But some have more secrets than others.Jim is a brilliant raconteur whose stories get taller with each glass of whisky. His daughter Sam thinks it's time she found out the truth about her dad.On holiday in Orkney, Sam spies on Jim as he travels across the island. What has he hidden in the abandoned watchtower? Who is he meeting in the stone circle at dusk? And why is he suddenly obsessed with Norse myths?As Sam is drawn into Jim's s...

Do you believe in magic?Can you imagine a war between wizards, a rebellious ant called 4179003, or a time-travelling television?Can you imagine that poor old Mr Swimble could see a mysterious vacuum cleaner in the morning, and make cheese sandwiches and yellow elephants magically appear by the afternoon?Welcome to the wonderful world of Sir Terry Pratchett, and fourteen fantastically funny tales from the master storyteller. Bursting from these pages are food fights,...

New York Times BestsellerDo you believe in magic? Can you imagine a war between wizards? An exciting journey in an airship or down in a submarine? Would you like to meet the fastest truncheon in the Wild West?The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner is the second fabulously funny short-story collection from the late acclaimed storyteller Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the beloved and bestselling Discworld fantasy series. A follow-up to Dragons at Crumbling Castle, this second batch of st...

Schoolboys are disappearing all over Aberystwyth and nobody knows why. Louie Knight, the town's private investigator, soon realises that it is going to take more than a double ripple from Sospan, the philosopher cum ice-cream seller, to help find out what is happening to these boys and whether or not Lovespoon, the Welsh teacher, Grand Wizard of the Druids and controller of the town, is more than just a sinister bully. And just who was Gwenno Guevara?

When Simon Armitage burst on to the poetry scene in 1989 with his spectacular debut Zoom!, readers were introduced to an exceptional new talent who would reshape the landscape of contemporary poetry in the years to come. Now, twenty-five years on, Simon Armitage's reputation as one of the nation's most original, most respected and best-loved poets seems secure. Paper Aeroplane: Poems 1989-2014 is the author's own selection from across a quarter-century of work, from his d...

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Doris Lessing, a short story about a woman’s gradual drift outside the limits of society.An old woman, with gipsy blood, begins to find the conventions of society stifling – when her husband dies, and her children leave home, she embraces a marginal, unconventional existence, accompanied by her faithful cat.‘An Old Woman and Her Cat’ brilliantly combines Doris Lessing’s unforgiving examination of our society – and those it ...

Seamus Heaney's new collection starts 'in an age of bare hands and cast iron' and ends 'as the automatic lock / clunks shut' in the eerie new conditions of a menaced twentieth-first century. In their haunted, almost visionary clarity, the poems assay the weight and worth of what has been held in the hand and in the memory. Images out of a childhood spent safe from the horrors of World War II - railway sleepers, a sledgehammer, the 'heavyweight silence' of cattle out in rain - are coloured ...

An ex-Scotland Yard superintendent is caught up in an international mystery: "The most original crime novelist to appear for a long, long time." — The GuardianThe West Indies island of Hog's Cay is soon to open for tourism, but the money behind the deal comes from the Mafia, which is ready to turn the island into the next Vegas. And the politicos in charge have given Greek tycoon Thanassi Thanatos the contract. That's where James Pibble comes in.The ...

Its black-marketriddled England, and MI5 has pushed cat burglar and jewel thief Jethro out onto the rooftops of London - again - in defense of the Realm. Ever looming in the background are the twin spectres of the growing communist menace and a resurgence of fascism. Things turn decidedly deadly when Jethro stumbles across a Royal cover-up and an extreme right-wing plot to topple Britains new Labour Government. He must pull off a very dodgy and dangerous caper, the success or failure of which...

It is 1949, and 'The Smoke' remains tarnished with shattered, abandoned buildings and bombsites. Its the perfect backdrop for Jethro - honest Cockney cat burglar - to redistribute the wealth of the upper classes. The day after thieving jewels from a mansion, headlines scream that the very man Jethro robbed was found dead. Its deemed a homicide when the jewels are discovered missing, and Jethro sets off on a search into Londons dark underworld to find out who is trying to frame him.

'The most popular English poet since Larkin.' Sunday TimesAfter more than a decade and following his celebrated adventures in drama, translation, travel writing and prose poetry, Simon Armitage's eleventh collection of poems heralds a return to his trademark contemporary lyricism. The pieces in this multi-textured and moving volume are set against a backdrop of economic recession and social division, where mass media, the mass market and globalisation have made alienation ...